


Animus

by guileheroine



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Canon Compliant, Character Study, F/M, Life Partners, Light Angst, Mustang's Team, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-14
Updated: 2018-06-14
Packaged: 2019-05-23 03:44:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14926479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guileheroine/pseuds/guileheroine
Summary: They’re quieter now than ever, and closer. He supposes it makes sense - she had settled too, just less visibly, and now they’ve been themselves together for a very long time.Almost a day in the life of Riza's daemon and his human.





	Animus

**Author's Note:**

> devised with + art by [willoghby](https://willoghby.tumblr.com/).  
> on [tumblr](http://guileheroine.tumblr.com/post/174872229703/animus-almost-a-day-in-the-life-of-rizas-daemon).

“Wait,” Argus whispers, and Riza retracts her step without a beat. His keener ears twitch, tail feathers bristling. “Now,” he continues in her ear a moment later, and they stride into the corridor and the unpleasant view of Bradley’s disappearing shoulders as he turns the corner, his rat daemon in his thick, curled hand.

 

“Wait.” Riza in his ear this time, stopping him as he’s about to fly ahead and peek through the keyhole of Bradley’s recently vacated private meeting room, claws itching to scrape at the handle. “Better give him a moment.”

 

Indeed, when Mustang steps out a second later, composure not quite threatening to disintegrate, Argus has the impression of a man only just come to a place of clear thought, let alone a conclusion.

 

 _Anything?_ Riza says with her eyes. Only he and Mustang can hear that urgent question. Argus has his recurrent thought that she knows _him_ the way Argus knows her; something he’s learnt to nurture an ever greater appreciation of with every passing year.

 

Mustang’s eyes say a lot - in fact, they say _a lot_ \-  and Argus’s claws dig in Riza’s shoulder at the sudden apprehension dealt by the silent gesture. Riza feels less trepidation, and he knows it’s because she’s (always) prepared for the worst. Bradley’s bizzare heart to hearts betray an astonishing amount lately; or rather, it’s probably simply that they’re finally close enough to take what he’s giving them, thank to Hughes.

 

“The barracks, Lieutenant,” Mustang says finally, indicating that that’s where he’ll tell them; one of a handful of places unimportant enough that they might confer without fear, for now. “After lunch.” He clears his throat, a finger crooked near his mouth, nods, and strides off.

 

Only then does Nura slink from behind the door. She follows him automatically - at once quick and absent, without a glance of acknowledgement for Argus. She must have been working hard already to assimilate whatever information they had gathered - holding the strings together and tying them as fast as many as possible before they fell away.

 

They do this. Mustang has to be alert, be a man not himself half the day, so Nura lightens the load - one shrewd, discerning mind always connecting frantic dots while the other keeps up appearances. She can be almost immature in her displays of proud indiscipline, like when she stares superiors down where formality forbids it for her arguably more cautious human; but as they pad off quickly she leaps and curls into his arms for reassurance, settling against his chest.

 

Argus supposes it’s another such semi-vicarious expression - this odd moment of vulnerability that she can get away with, a temperamental cat daemon, but he certainly can’t within the walls of Central City headquarters.

 

Riza sighs. _I guess we’ll wait._ Argus settles more comfortably, making some attempt to straighten the crease he’s created in her uniform. They don’t follow Mustang and Nura.

 

-

 

He is patient, and so is Riza, so anyone might assume they’re just patient together - it’s what everyone does assume, when they see Argus on his perch on her left shoulder or hear the matched steady timbres of their hushed whispers. Their reality is more complex, unless they’re truly preoccupied; a fine equilibrium constantly negotiated - each _keeping_ the other patient through days, months, years; through the anxious anticipation that fills all the pockets of their time not spent labouring for whatever it is they’re awaiting.

 

Patience is well practised. A notch up is perspective, something more difficult to relay, if only because Riza so rarely requires it of him. Argus still considers it his critical responsibility when she does, because when she does is at her wretched worst.

 

She lay with her fingers deep in the groove of her brow bone one night a few months ago. They were still in East City. Argus couldn’t sleep because of her so he hopped down from the headboard onto the bed.

 

He pushed his bill in her unbound hair before whispering her name twice. Her hand fell away to reveal eyes wide open, and though they didn’t turn to him her reluctant plea was evident in them. She almost made to sit up but Argus bore onto her arm.

 

Once, a long time ago, she had asked to know if he could still love her. He’d think it was the worst thought one could have - in fact, she would _hurt_ him with it - if he hadn’t thought the same. They were partners in the gravest crimes, even if she had pulled the triggers.

 

“I just don’t know if I have enough to give,” Riza explained now, the grit of her teeth making Argus’s breast twist as he felt his own mind, awash with the memory of guilt.

 

When she lifted her hands up before her and examined the backs of them, as if the scant moonlight in here were enough to see by, Argus took it as his cue to tether her.

 

Their pain and their purpose had made a cold sort of contract. Normally Riza was the one who could maintain its terms with the most sensible, hard-nosed outlook, outwardly at least; as she pressed her sorrows into a manageable shape with the pursuit of this almost ruthless redress, powering their best hopes for the future with the worst of their past. He wasn’t as great at compartmentalising, had to stop and recollect more often - but it meant that when things did surface for her, he was better practised at pushing them down again.

 

“No, maybe not,” he soothed, because she would be unwilling to hear the truth (that she did have enough, that he loved her), “but you have to give what you have.” He curved a wing over her face, cutting her sight; and she placed her hands back at her sides. “There’s no other way.” There was comfort in that, refuge. Riza closed her eyes, and he was pleased to sense her lashes were dry, and when they opened her eyes were cool again. He felt his own little body ease.

 

He rested in the crook of her neck, her deliberate breath ruffling his own fleecy neck. And he found that if he made to sleep, she’d do it too, for his sake.

 

-

 

They don’t make it to barracks at the agreed time, don’t need to in the end. They don’t even make it to lunch: there’s a ruckus downtown, and they arrive only in time to catch the wreckage that _whoever_ it was this time has left behind.

 

“Scar?” Is Riza’s first instinct, but Argus responds, “No,” immediately - they haven’t had any whiffs of him around Central for a while now, and he only targets State Alchemists, none of which roam anywhere around here, to their knowledge. Riza remains alert.

 

“The Elric brothers?” Is Roy’s second, more collected instinct. Nura sniffs, bounding ahead into the narrow alley. Argus sweeps down to fly at her level, leading their humans.

 

Nura seems confident though. “Nothing bad?” He asks, a foot or so above her twitching ears.

 

“Something bad,” she replies. “But they’re not here anymore.”

 

Rather than darkening into some backstreet, they come to a dead end before a battered steel fence, a surprisingly wide field behind in it. Argus is mildly annoyed that he still doesn’t know Central City as well as he’d like, despite careful surveys whenever Riza opts to go somewhere on foot - it sprawls further and stranger than East City ever did. The remains of a rough shack emerge out of the brick in one corner, clinging as though it had crept organically out of the concrete over decades. There’s a very strong odour about. Thick and strangely sweet but very much animal-like… Bovine? Some debris flutters down into Nura’s fur.

 

Argus picks it off with his bill and blows it away. She grimaces and scrunches her back but doesn’t stop him; he knows her irritation is nothing to be deterred by.

 

The door to the shack is still on the hinge somehow, but it probably won’t be for much longer. Nura slips under it easily, Roy flexes his wrist under his glove and Riza puts her own hand on her pistol. Roy is alert with his daemon hidden behind the door but all she finds, it turns out a second later, is a stocky man in farmers’ clothes struggling to collect his wits, his pygmy goat daemon shivering in his lap.

 

They question him for a minute - who attacked him, for what - and then, in the same moment that Nura stiffens and says, “Roy -” her human’s face turns white. Argus resettles on Riza’s tensed arm, shuffling his wings in momentary confusion, but they both know almost immediately that they have the answers they need, whatever they may be. They thank the man and take him with them for further questioning.

 

-

 

“His pet, remember - they wanted it, I know why,” Roy explains on the way in hushed tones. It had been plain from the way the farmer described the attack that his assailant had been one of the Homunculi. Argus gives Roy his full attention, flitting from foot to foot, whilst Riza keeps her eyes on the road, her jaw set.

 

“ _Roy,_ ” Nura bites, eyes narrowing towards the man in the backseat, but he shrugs vaguely as if to brush her warning off: he’s already asleep, now that the shock is wearing off.

 

Argus has a hunch. Has had a hunch for while, that he didn’t dare confront with the full focus of his heart and mind - ever since they came to know that the Homunculi weren’t quite human, were something apart perhaps in their very essence.

 

Until now, that is. And his feathers bristle and his eyes squeeze shut as Roy speaks the words.

 

“Their daemons aren’t real.” Even Riza’s breath hitches a little. “Bradley’s - I saw it today. He kept it in a cage in that office. I don’t know what spell they put on them to fool us, but they’re puppets, alright.”

 

The weight of a heavy, horrific nausea is in the pit of Argus’s stomach, but he wills himself to cooperate. He had felt a way around Bradley always, a chill disquiet like the feeling of being followed, small but profound. He realises only now that he has never seen his daemon speak.

 

Mustang sweeps a hand through his hair in distress before continuing. “But I think they can’t transmute them. They have to twist real animals so they’re at least part way to some kind of soul. This man had the only musk ox in Central, brought it from his family homestead up outside Monmort, by the tundra. And that’s the creature they wanted -”

 

Nura is curled around the headrest of Mustang’s seat, uncharacteristically still. It’s easy enough to fill in the rest - there’s another Homunculus with a daemon wanting, but why -

 

“My guess is they want something that can survive up north, something strong,” Roy finishes.

 

He says he needs to spend some time with Hughes’ documents; see if they help fill any gaps in. Argus curls into Riza’s shoulder. Normally she doesn’t like that while she’s driving.

 

-

 

It isn’t long past lunchtime when they find themselves back in the office. Argus hops over shelves, picking tools and bolts from an open case as Riza fiddles with some of her older firearms. Both their minds are on this morning’s discovery. Periodically, he flies to Nura and back to Riza to relay Mustang’s progress as he pores and pores over his pages.

 

Nura is lazing on Mustang’s desk, as usual on a calm afternoon, with an unaffected, quiet sort of grandeur. It’s a clever guise, and terrifically effective - she the physical projection of the character he conveys to the world, preening away as a literal barrier before him as he works. A conscious ploy though it is, Argus can’t help but find it somewhat grating, having to wait and cough and bob his head every time he goes over before she stops licking her fur and her disdainful, idle eyes land on him. Lazy is the last thing he’d call the real Nura. Perhaps the strength of this show is just testament to the wiles of both daemon and human - which is good for all their sakes, of course, so he does what he tends to anyway and ignores her airs.

 

“Your daemon’s quiet,” some scally private delivering papers to their unit later that afternoon says. He makes small talk as he waits for Falman to return with something or the other that he’s supposed to take back. Argus is too occupied with trying to fix the slide lock in place on the pistol Riza has been reassembling to engage the man’s restless dog daemon, while Riza  reluctantly divides her attention between the task and their visitor. It’s only in moments like this that he feels aggressive - can’t he see they’re busy?

 

Anyway, it’s unusual for the man to refer to another’s daemon like that - more of a not-so-covert gibe at Riza’s own attitude. They both try not to roll their eyes. There are those that assume some kind of mutual dissatisfaction or character flaw when they see daemons and humans who aren’t constantly conferring, as if they need to talk to be wholly connected. They don’t. Argus’s eyes rove over the firearms as he considers their steady concord, how he circles to aid her aim, barely flutters when she shoots. All silent.

 

Roy and Nura are always sniping at one another under their breaths, but that’s them. Riza jokes at her poor luck to be saddled with a daemon who wouldn’t do the slightest to pull her out of herself. _He_ has to laugh when she laughs at his sober, affronted response to that notion, like hers wouldn’t be exactly the same.

 

They’re quieter now than ever, and closer. He supposes it makes sense - she had settled too, just less visibly, and now they’ve been themselves together for a very long time.

 

She says she had always known how he’d settle. Though it had happened unusually early for Argus, which she couldn’t have predicted.

 

“Not a hawk?” Roy had said, masking surprise, the first day Argus didn’t change for hours and Riza was (even) quieter than usual. Nura transformed rather conspicuously into a meek red squirrel and slipped around his back, betraying his slight embarrassment.

 

Riza couldn’t help but give a reluctant smile. She would suffer his awkward curiosity with grace (and not much attention, it had to be said) the whole day. Her smile became smug, even. Argus felt pride. He flapped and curved his wings all afternoon. Although he had been a kestrel often, only now did he pay any heed to the feel of the form. Now he was wobbling, and had to learn how to wear it, weirdly; when every time before it had been as easy as a blink.

 

Roy had called Riza precocious, which wasn’t quite so damning coming from another - terrifically precocious - child, while Argus sat in her still lap outside on the old wooden bench in the overgrown yard. Sweet though she was, she was typically fairly frugal with her affection in company, yet today she barely took her eyes off him, running gentle fingers over his downy brow while Argus bared and retracted his talons experimentally. They were both getting used to things.

 

“How does it feel?” Nura said, blinking big eyes at him, shifting into a merlin so they somewhat matched, as if to keep pace or something.

 

It had taken her only another month to settle, but it was still strange considering that Roy had a few years on Riza. When she did settle, Riza had ribbed Roy more than he ever had them. Nura bared her little teeth viciously, and yes, they believed and _knew_ her to be vicious, but it was impossible not to tease. A tiny, rusty cat (full of the world’s fury.)

 

-

 

It’s almost six o’clock when they return to the office with Havoc and Xenia in tow. On the way in they bump into Fuery. His gerbil daemon is scurrying in a tangle of wires in the bulky crate of mobile equipment he’s carrying. There are live wires.

 

“Hanna?” Riza says, slightly startled as she looks down, drawn away from the question on her lips.

 

Fuery waves the concern off. “Oh, she knows what she’s doing, don’t worry.” Only when Hanna plugs one into the machine with both her tiny claws does Argus realises that she’s in fact _sorting_ the wires.

 

“Anything on what we discussed earlier?” Riza asks casually.

 

Fuery taps the crate. “No, but I’m working on it. I’ll need clearer frequencies from up north. I’ll let you know if they hear anything.”

 

Riza leaves him with a kind nod, Argus eyeing Hanna warily until the last moment.

 

He flies to Riza’s desk ahead of her, sailing past Havoc, who upon entering, goes to slump against Roy’s desk after a salutary point of the fingers at Breda in the corner. He’s only here to drag them all out again.

 

Roy pointedly continues to bore into his papers. Xenia claps her fingers in Nura’s back, making her scowl and scratch, and he finally gives a long-suffering sigh. Nura continues to bare her teeth.

 

Xenia, a macaque who stands out in all the military even here in Central, retreats into Havoc’s arms.

 

“ _Man,_ tell your daemon not to be such a shrew!”

 

“What is it?” Roy demands, struggling not to roll his eyes. There’s more mirth in the words than irritation - still a fine balance, but it’s sliding - and it occurs to Argus just how precisely he can tell. “And she’s a cat, Jean, not a shrew.” Havoc frowns.

 

“Oh, she’s just scrappy,” Riza pipes up, folding her coat onto her chair. She raises an eyebrow and her glimmering eyes fall on Roy, whose brow is still knotted seriously. “It has to come out somewhere.”

 

She’s trying to get a rise out of him too. Argus flaps happily onto her shoulder. She had spent a refreshing hour with Havoc at the firing range, and now they both feel easier.

 

“Come on, Colonel,” Riza continues, “you need to let off some steam.”

 

“C’mon…” Havoc parrots, making a motion of yanking him out of the chair. “The Salamander? That one down 47th? We can finish the night off at Madame Christmas’s.” He waggles his eyebrows.

 

Of course, it’s a little early to be making the rounds. And of course, they’re pushing him because there’s things to be done that require cover of night, and cover of this not entirely insincere pretense.

 

Nura leaps down from the desk, while Roy takes the added precaution of dragging his feet.

 

They follow them out into the dark, but Riza gives the men a slight head start before calling Argus to her shoulder.

 

“What is it?” He says.

 

“Nothing.” She laughs after a length of silence, though her eyes remain a little distant. “I just thought we could take our time. We’re supposed to lose them out by the station anyway.”

 

Argus accepts that without too much thought. And then he wonders, if the events of the morning had rattled her as much as him. He considers her, the beloved face serious again, despite the thumb and forefinger that have come up to clasp around his foot in absent affection.

 

Eyes larger and lighter than his beady ones, but only barely less sharp as they flicker into the room again.

 

Argus bows his head and lets it fall against her ear, tickling her. Riza comes back to him and smiles.

 

*


End file.
